


Scars like Velvet

by Anonymous



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Cats, Cunnilingus, F/F, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-26 15:26:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5009965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Berúthiel goes back to her native town, there's only one person she truly wishes to meet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scars like Velvet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lunarium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunarium/gifts).



> Beta read by the wonderful amyfortuna.

When the ship crashed on unseen rocks submerged under stormy waves, north of the peninsula which shielded the port of Umbar from the currents, Berúthiel barely managed to stay afloat by holding onto one of the planks from the broken vessel. She couldn't swim, but the north wind carried her, and she was washed on the shore after some hustling. Of the cats that had been set on the ship with her, only one survived. The terrified animal, wet and battered by the currents, didn't even try to escape when Berúthiel attempted to hug her, staggering on the sand after coughing up all the water she had swallowed. 

She crossed the narrow strip of land holding the cat in her arms, until, in the vicinity of Umbar itself, she came upon a caravan of merchants making a stop in the last large oasis on the edge of the desert, before veering south towards her own town.

Her family hadn't been happy to see her again. Her parents had both died during her stay in Gondor, and her brothers and older sister were dismayed by her return, since it meant they went from being the siblings to the ruling Queen of Gondor to the closest relations of a renegade. 

But there was one to welcome her, a childhood friend – her best friend, the person she had missed the most during her dreary years in Gondor – Laili. Laili was the only daughter of a rich merchant. After her father's death, she had inherited all his fortune and his position in the town's merchant guild, as well as the freedom not to marry. She had made good use of that freedom - never marrying, but establishing herself as a successful poet too, and the patron of sundry artists and musicians.

Her house was large, its perimeter covering a whole block in one of the most affluent areas of the town, and she welcomed Berúthiel to settle there, giving her a whole floor to herself, with only two trusted servants to look after her, and a reserved performer for company – blind Gülsuman, who was one of Laili's own fosterlings.

She was given plenty of time and quiet to settle in and recover from her ordeal. 

Laili sent for the best doctors and acted as intermediary for all the questioning from the town council, agreeing with them that Berúthiel would meet them once she was sufficiently recovered. 

Berúthiel spent those first few days in the day-room of her new home – her first true home in so many years – sitting cross-legged on the rugs covering the floor, listening on as Gülsuman thrummed a droneful, soothing tune on her tambura.

She turned from time to time to look at the woman, at her graceful posture, with her right leg bent forward and the left folded backwards under it. She had missed those melodies, the very shape of the instrument. She inhaled deeply, gladly breathing in the scent of myrrh burning in an incense stand next to the open door. A sandstorm raged on the town – the sky was colored orange outside – but in the small internal courtyard the air was relatively still, and the water of the fountain in its middle bubbled cheerily.

The cat, who even now seemed not to want to leave Berúthiel, slept peacefully next to her, her body on the rug but her chin thrust upward against Berúthiel's thigh. Berúthiel tried to keep as still as possible so as not to disturb her sleep. 

Laili joined her there, crouching down on the rugs so that faced each other.

She reached out to take Berúthiel's left hand. It was still bandaged, healing from a deep cut inflicted by a large splinter from the wooden plank which had saved her life.

“I won't have any visitors this afternoon because of the habub. Shall we spend some time together?” she asked.

“You know I don't mind,” Berúthiel said in reply, but wriggled her hand from Laili's hold, averting her gaze, seemingly intent on devoting her attention to gently petting the top of the cat's head.

Laili's eyes wandered over the seams and folds of the black dress Berúthiel wore, its deep neckline revealing much of her skin, and up at her still rather haggard face.

“Are you feeling better?”

Berúthiel nodded. She still had nightmares – dreadful dreams in which she drowned, in which the sea pulled her down and she choked – and sometimes felt like she was falling in deep darkness. Sometimes she also dreamt of her last days in Gondor, but those stirred anger in her rather than fear. She raised her head again to find Laili staring intently at her. 

“What is it?”

“The town is still aflutter with talk,” Laili said with a little sigh. It was pointless to keep that from Berúthiel, especially since she could very well imagine it on her own. “Some speak as if we were to go to war with Gondor soon.”

Berúthiel scoffed. “That old fool, Tarannon...he intended to attack Umbar all along, irrespective of my being his wife. He has been building ships for years, and not for show. Nothing I could have done would have stopped him.” 

Laili nodded, throwing her hair back over her shoulders from where it had fallen on her chest when she crouched down, and shifting to a cross-legged position. She caught the hint of defensiveness in Berúthiel, not just in her tone but in her posture too. “In any case, it's absurd to think he would be justified in attacking us just because he repudiated you, whatever the reason for that was.” 

Berúthiel made a disgusted grimace but said nothing.

It had always been hard to draw words from Berúthiel, particularly if the matter was delicate, and very private. From what she had been able to piece together by what Berúthiel had revealed, Tarannon and she had never gotten along from the very start.

“Did he-...”

Berúthiel shook her head once, firmly. “I did not live with him in his beloved port-town, but in a town some way up a river...Osgiliath. A decent place, and I was left reasonably in peace, taking care of all the stray cats to be found in and around the town.”

A smile spread on Gülsuman's face, while her fingers curled one after the next in a careful rhythm over the strings of her instrument. Laili chuckled. A love of cats was as natural as the sand in the desert in among their people. Every home had cats, every holy place and every meeting hall. Still, Berúthiel was an exceptional case. Even in their youth, studying music together, Berúthiel had spent most of her spare time looking after the small felines, preferring their company to that of human beings. 

“They eat them sometimes,” Berúthiel bluntly said, petting the cat again.

Amusement, the gaiety of fond memories, drained from Laili's face. “What?”

“A barbarous practice, yes. The Kings see nothing amiss with that. They claim cats are like any other animal. I disagreed of course, and forbid anyone to even hit one. But then they saw me talking to the cats, and started believing that I set the poor creatures to spy on them.”

“Spy?” Laili lifted both eyebrows. The notion was such as would not have been amiss in the wildest fairy tales from across the deserts, brought by the storytellers which usually accompanied the caravans travelling East or South. 

“Ironic, isn't it?” Berúthiel spat. Her family, and the councilmen behind it, had hoped to gain access to Gondor's secrets, and she should have been doing exactly that: spy on Tarannon. She hadn't. She had been unable to avoid being married, but she had refused to be a puppet to the marriage, foiling both Tarannon's expectations, and her family's. “Though I suppose I will not be able to avoid reporting what I do know to the council, now,” she muttered, largely to herself.

The cat woke up, and stirred, stretching all four paws and opening her jaws in a wide yawn. Berúthiel cooed her, and petted the underside of her jaw. 

“Do you want to eat some sweets?” Laili asked. “Dried fruits were delivered before the habub engulfed the town.”

Berúthiel's eyes narrowed. She had not been able to take much food at first, but her appetite was returning as she grew reaccustomed to the smells and flavours of her childhood. “Yes...yes. I would have some.”

Laili stood up, walking towards the door to call on the servants. Berúthiel followed her with her eyes. 

*

The days went by in welcome, languid monotony. 

Returning from a meeting with the merchant guild one late afternoon, Laili found Berúthiel in the day-room, as always, sitting with her back to the wall facing the courtyard and a tatting needle in her hands, quickly making rings from a ball of deep-carmine silk. The light from the windows on either side of her glowed a rich gold in the late twilight, suffusing her dark amber skin.

Spending the evening together had become a routine, and Laili had adjusted her everyday schedule to make it possible, while also attempting to coax Berúthiel out of her aloofness.

“You should go out. We could take a walk -”

“I don't want to be pointed at.”

Laili sighed. “Not everybody is set against you. Some would actually be happy to see you. They don't like Gondor, never did. And sooner or later you will have to meet the town council.”

“You know I never cared for people's company. Or their opinion. My parents knew this too when they decided I'd make a good political pawn and shipped me off to Tarannon.”

“If you had been a little more...diplomatic, perhaps things would have gone better, and you could have gained more out of it.”

“Compromise,” Berúthiel snarled, throwing her work to the ground. “What could I possibly have gained from it? I would have still hated Tarannon, the sea...and having to leave behind everything that I cared about the most.” Berúthiel finished speaking through clenched teeth, her voice faltering, as if she regretted the words in the very instant she uttered them. 

Laili's breath caught in her throat, and she started when Berúthiel gripped both her hands, gazing in anguish at the light wrinkles that had begun to mark them. She held onto them, with her fingers – smooth save for the scar from the splinter – then turned, fixing her eyes on the back wall. 

“You have aged. A lot more than I have,” she said in a strangled whisper.

Laili's family had mixed with Haradrim nobility to the point that Númenorean blood had become weak in them. It was that blood which had made Berúthiel the perfect candidate to be married to Tarannon. The Gondorians wouldn't have wanted a Queen with a too prominent Haradrim ancestry. Berúthiel hated the very thought of that blood flowing in her own veins.

“I wish I had never returned. I wish I had drowned in the sea...that moving grave smelling of putridness.” 

“...don't say that!” Laili exclaimed, breaking free of Berúthiel's hold and throwing herself in her arms. Berúthiel tried to push her away at first but Laili didn't allow her to, and bit by bit she relented and gripped Laili's dress in a way that didn't speak of desperation as much as it did of desire. 

“I would have wanted to spend my life with you, just-...by your side, as we did when we were young,” she said, in an outpour of emotion she could no longer stay. It was an overpowering feeling, raging and unbridled, like the sea, and she felt helpless in it. “I should never have left. I should -”

“Time is all ours now,” Laili cut her short, pulled back and covered Berúthiel's lips with her own.

In only a few heartbeats, the storm abated, succumbed to the soft touch of those lips. A lulling warmth went through Berúthiel's body, and through her soul even more soothingly. Her grip loosened, as did her body, and Laili pulled her closer. 

Gülsuman sensed the change in the atmosphere of the room, and even more in Berúthiel's mood. She stood up, taking her tambura with her, and left the room. She closed the door behind her, and sat down against it, blocking it. She began playing there. 

Laili heard the door click shut and made a mental note to thank Gülsuman, then her attention focused wholly on Berúthiel again. Her hands frantically slid the silver-lined, simple black dress Berúthiel wore off her shoulders. Berúthiel kicked away her house slippers and her brief, and all three garments were cast to the side. Her undergown and Laili's own clothing followed suit.

They kissed again. Laili's lips trailed down Berúthiel's throat and to the cleft between her breasts. She trailed her tongue there, tasting a faint whiff of sweat and of perfume Her mouth then flitted over the soft mound to capture a dark nipple. 

Passion, a long-craved rapture, overwhelmed both. Laili pushed Berúthiel down and latched onto her nipple again, her hands moving up and down Béruthel's chest, unsure where to stop, wanting to touch every inch of skin, every curve, all that was Berúthiel. Berúthiel writhed under her, her body yearning for her warmth, her love. Finally Laili's right hand laced through the thick black curls crowning Berúthiel's mound, and pulled. Berúthiel squealed in pure delight, losing herself a sensation that was new and so welcome. Laili sucked hard on the nipple in her mouth. Her fingers continued their descent down Berúthiel's mound and moved, fluttering, over her clit and opening. She found her dripping with wetness, and she had no difficulty pushing three of her fingers inside her.

“Laili -” Berúthiel gasped, clenching around them for a moment. “Just...press, yes...there.”

Laili pushed the fingers in as far as they would go and pressed down. Then she slid back on her knees and bent, sticking her tongue out to join her fingers in Berúthiel's opening and then trailing it up to her clit.

“Laili!” Berúthiel cried. She arched off the ground and came. 

Laili brought the wet fingers to her mouth, savouring Béruthiel's own taste, but when she made to return them to her quim Berúthiel stopped her, her chest still heaving. “Please...a moment.”

“As you wish,” Laili said, stooping over to kiss her again.

They lay on their own strewn clothing, holding each other. The sound of Gülsuman's playing filtered through the door, and the fountain bubbled on in the garden. 

They were so immersed in the delight of that moment that they both started when the cat, who had been forgotten in the heat of passion, decided to hop onto their legs, and totteringly made her way up their bodies to nestle herself between them. 

Laili heaved a shaky sigh and laughed, not only at the cat's invasiveness, but at the fondness in Berúthiel's black eyes as she looked at her.

“Just when I could finally have you -” she said, trailing off for effect. 

Berúthiel raised her head, at once worried again. “What -”

Laili reached out to stroke her cheek, and with a reassuring smile said, “it turns out I have to share.”

Berúthiel took only a moment to get the joke. Her frown smoothed out, and she chuckled softly, and then her voice rose to happy, tinkling laughter. “I'll move her in a while...but only because it's you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not familiar with djinn at all, but I tried to build the setting using elements from several Middle-Eastern cultures as well as Indian culture. The dresses in particular are based on [Jordanian traditional fashion](http://www.justhere.qa/2013/06/a-walk-through-the-doha-trade-fair).
> 
> The name Laili (otherwise more usually spelled Laila) is from [an Afghan song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6e9XzTz5CM), Gülsuman should be Tadjik for Yasmin.


End file.
